UBC Opera 2018 2019 SEASON SILENT NIGHT DIE ZAUBERFLÖTE DON GIOVANNI Welcome to UBC Opera! Our 2018–19 Season will begin on August 27 and September 3 with four performances of beloved operatic excerpts at Bard on the Beach, with the Bard himself, Christopher Gaze, conductor, Leslie Dala and members of the Vancouver Opera Orchestra. We will again have our ever-popular Opera Teas at the Old Auditorium and the Botanical Gardens where audiences can be up close and personal with our talented young singers. Our series Singer Behind the Song will continue beginning on September 18, with one of opera's greatest singers, Renée Fleming, who now is devoting much of her attention to research in neuroscience and music and the mind. She entitles her presentation “Sound Health: Music and the Mind”, a collaboration with the Kennedy Centre, the U.S. National Institutes of Health and the U.S. National Endowment for the Arts. We also appreciate the collaboration of the Vancouver Symphony, the Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies, Dean Gage Averill, Faculty of Arts and our President, Professor Santa Ono. Our own team of UBC researchers who are involved in a similar opera project, “Brain Sculpting” funded by the Peter Wall Institute, will join Ms. Fleming in a panel discussion after her presentation. On December 5, at the Old Auditorium, the Metropolitan Opera soprano Angela Meade will return to Vancouver to join us at UBC. She joins us for a concert, interview and reception, followed by a masterclass with our students. Hailed as “the most talked about soprano of her generation” (Opera News), American soprano Angela Meade is the winner of both the Metropolitan Opera’s 2012 Beverly Sills Artist Award and the 2011 Richard Tucker Award. She has fast become recognized as one of today’s outstanding vocalists, excelling in the most demanding heroines of the 19th-century bel canto repertoire as well as in the operas of Verdi and Mozart. We thank our generous sponsors for this event: The Sonya and Charlotte Wall Arts Fund, The Yulanda Faris Opera Coach Fund, the Peter Wall Institute and Showcase Pianos. Our first opera, part of a President’s Initiative and in commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the end of WWI, will be Kevin Puts’ Silent Night. The opera is based on the award-winning film, Joyeux Noël. The film uses the true story of Christmas Eve 1914, when the German, Scottish and French soldiers on a Belgian battlefield stopped fighting. It all started in the trenches when a German opera singer, Kirchoff, began to sing Stille Nacht. The Scots joined in with accompaniment on the bagpipes and the French joined with their version of the well-known Christmas song. Through their singing, as the film’s Executive Producer, Christopher Rossignon says, “An art form could destroy the idea of war for a moment”. It was agreed that on Christmas Eve and again on Christmas Day there would be no fighting so the soldiers could bury their dead. Gradually the men came out of their trenches into ‘no man’s land’. Scotch whiskey, French champagne and wine, Belgian chocolate and all manner of items were exchanged between the troops. A French barber gave Christmas haircuts, soccer and card games were played and photos of wives, children and families were shared; one human being to another. As part of a further President’s Initiative, the creation of a Veterans Hub has been established at UBC’s Faculty of Education. We would also like to shine a spotlight on a life-changing program created at that faculty for veterans, the Veterans Transition Program. Now known as the Veterans Transition Network, this incredible program helps our veterans make the transition back into civilian life. A symposium centred around that transition, PTSD and its effects on the soldiers who return from war and peace-keeping missions, will be held in conjunction with the opera. The role that the arts can play in this transition has already started to be investigated through fine art and theatre. The opera will further the investigation into what role music and opera can play in the transition back to civilian life for our veterans. We are very pleased to have members of the armed forces in the production with us. We would also like to thank President Santa Ono for his support of these projects and our veterans. Our second opera of the season is an audience favourite, Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute). With a fearsome monster, a prince, a princess, a bird catcher and his future wife, three ladies in waiting, three young spirits, a lustful overseer, a wise priest and his followers, it is an opera to delight the whole family. The season concludes with Don Giovanni, which premiered in Prague’s Estates Theatre on October 29, 1787. Mozart conducted the premiere himself. He called the opera a dramma giocoso, an opera mixing drama with comedy. Today, it is still beloved by opera audiences around the world. Our production, from Prague’s Estates Theatre with its beautiful scenery and costumes, will transport you back in time with the adventures of Mozart’s dashing rogue, Don Giovanni. Sincerely, Nancy Hermiston, O.C., Head, Voice and Opera Divisions We acknowledge that the University of British Columbia is situated UBCOPERA.COM | 1 on the traditional, ancestral and unceded territory of the Musqueam people. ILLUSTRATION BY ROAN SHANKARUK 2 | UBC OPERA ENSEMBLE 2018–2019 Silent Night OPERA IN TWO ACTS SUNG IN ENGLISH, FRENCH, GERMAN, ITALIAN AND LATIN, WITH ENGLISH SURTITLES Silent Night, based on the screenplay by Christian Carion for the motion picture Joyeux Noël produced by Nord-Ouest Production Commissioned by Minnesota Opera A Minnesota Opera New Works Initiative Production Music by Kevin Puts Libretto by Mark Campbell By arrangement with Aperto Press, publisher Bill Holab Music: Sole Agent. NOVEMBER 3, 8, 9 — 7:30 P.M. | NOVEMBER 4 — 2:00 P.M. THE OLD AUDITORIUM The 2012 Pulitzer Prize award-winning opera Silent Night, composed in 2011, recounts the remarkable true story of the 1914 Christmas Truce: a spontaneous cease-fire experienced by Scottish, French, and German soldiers during World War I. We are honoured to have members of the Canadian Armed Forces with us in the production. Silent Night begins at a Berlin opera house where singers Nikolaus Sprink and Anna Sørenson are performing. Suddenly the performance is interrupted and it is announced that Germany is at war. Their lives are changed forever as Nikolaus is conscripted to war and must leave Anna behind. While the opera centres around Anna and Nikolaus’ love for each other we also follow storylines from each of the nations at war. Scottish brothers, William and Jonathan Dale, and their priest, Father Palmer, continued on next page Robert Wood | Conductor Nancy Hermiston | Director Members of the Vancouver Opera Orchestra UBCOPERA.COM | 3 are dragged from their daily pursuits and suffer great loss. Meanwhile, in Paris, Lieutenant Audebert leaves behind his wife Madeleine, who is pregnant with their first child. The action moves to the battlefield in Belgium and by December, the casualties have mounted. As Christmas Eve falls Anna and Nikolaus are reunited when they are asked to perform at a concert for the Crown Prince and she accompanies him back to the trenches. Soldiers in the French, German, and Scottish bunkers begin recalling songs of home, stepping into no-man’s-land for a spontaneous truce. Once sworn enemies, they trade their weapons for merriment and camaraderie – resulting in one miraculous night of peace. Father Palmer celebrates mass and urges the men to “go in peace”. Following the cease-fire, word reaches headquarters where the generals react in anger and disbelief. They each declare the soldiers will be punished for fraternizing with the enemy. The Scottish soldiers are sent to the front lines, Audebert is transferred to Verdun with his unit disbanded, and the Germans are sent to Pomerania. As the soldiers leave they hum the Scottish ballad they heard on Christmas Eve. The battlefield stands empty and snow begins to fall once again. A plea for peace and a powerful examination of national and familial loyalty, amidst the futility of war. Lieutenant Gordon Lieutenant Audebert Lieutenant Horstmayer Costume Designs by Vita Tzykun for Wexford Festival Opera's 2014 production of Silent Night. 4 | UBC OPERA ENSEMBLE 2018–2019 Symposium Along with the opera, the UBC Opera Ensemble, the Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies, the Veterans Transition Network, and the Faculties of Arts and Education have come together to host a Symposium of multiple events, led by Corporal Tim Laidler, in order to highlight the Veterans Transition Network and to stimulate discussion around the inevitable transition from military to civilian life. The events will coincide with UBC’s President's Initiative of creating a Veterans Hub at UBC, housed at the Faculty of Education. The Veterans Transition Program, which is now known as the Veterans Transition Network was founded here at UBC by Drs. Marvin Westwood, David Kuhl, and Tim Black in the hopes of investigating new methods of helping Canadian Forces veterans reduce and cope with symptoms of operational stress injuries and transition more successfully into civilian life. The program has had great success using several facets of the fine and performing arts as mediums for emotional expression and to tell the stories of soldiers who are transitioning back to life in Canada. By inviting veterans to perform with us in the opera Silent Night we will extend the Veterans Transition Network’s research to include music and opera. VTN researchers will evaluate the effects of performing on each participant through pre- and post- measurements of change in levels of post-traumatic activations, self-confidence, self-esteem and relationship skills enhancement.